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America’s incarceration rate is in decline

theatlantic.com

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Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#331

Post by dfxm12 »

jjcob wrote: post #39
casenmgreen wrote: post #25

Freakonomics argued that crime correlates to whether or not abortion is available. If it is not, crime rates are up, and by a lot. If it is, crime rates are down. When you flip from one to the other, takes about 15/20 years for the effect to show up. Rationale is that forcing parents to have their kids when they're not ready for them significantly increases delinquency in young adults. This is apparently the only pos…

I doubt there is a single explanation. I think it's multiple factors. Unleaded gasoline could also be a factor. Every country has shown drops in crime rates when leaded gasoline was phased out. If I recall, leaded gasoline was phased out in the 80ies, which fits a drop in crime rates in the 90ies.

Unfortunately, the current US administration and congress are trying to expose us to more lead: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/03/republicans-...

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#332

Post by bluGill »

graemep wrote: post #286
ath3nd wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously the answer is "1950s america". And the 50s to 80s anywhere else in the civilized world.

It does not have to be a replica of of 50s society though. In particular, I do not think the model of "men go out to work, women look after home and kids" is a great one. There are lot of alternatives. Men can be primary parents (I was, once the kids got to about the age of eight or so, and was an equal parent before that) and they could stay at home (I continued working, but I was already self-employed and working f…

The model of men work while women watch the kids was most of history. Of course is completely ignors 'womens work' which was very needed for survival and defined by things you could do while also watching kids. for the first few years kids eat from mom so she cannot get far from them (after that she is probably pregnaunt again thus restarting the cycle). Mens work was anything that needed to be done that could not be done when pregaunt or nursing a kid.

today men have the ability to watch kids thanks to formula (though it is better for the kids to eat from mom - this is rarely talked about because it is easy to go too far and starve a baby to death in the exceptions).

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#333

Post by jlawson »

Nursie wrote: post #296
worthless-trash wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not to say they should be allowed to 'get away with it', but we need to take into account that it's not really the same thing as adults doing it. However, they -clearly- do get away with it, continually the current method of punishment is not deterring them from crime. These are not 'oh he made poor decisions style crimes', you're not paying attention or are not living in this area if you think so. I wish i…

I’m not trying to play down any problems or say nothing should be done. In fact I’m not expressing any beliefs other than the (very well supported) notion that children’s brains are not fully developed and therefore they shouldn’t be dealt with in the same way as adults because that’s just dumb and is likely not to help.

Can you expand on "that's just dumb"? I don't understand what argument this is trying to make.

All people have different brains; some are very low-intelligence and impulsive by nature and training, and this can apply at any age. The point of this punishment is not to apply a sort of cosmic morality according to the true culpability of a soul. Abstract principles about whether the person 'deserves' a punishment aren't actually relevant regardless of what shape their brain is. The point is the real-life consequence of their criminality on others, and how to stop them hurting people. We must stop them hurting people; let's figure out how.

This dedication to abstracted principles and cosmic morality over fixing the actual issue is really problematic; I see this more and more these days.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#334

Post by bluGill »

anyfoo wrote: post #95
wvenable wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My children are 12 years apart in age and being a parent in my 20s was a much better experience. I had less money, but I had more time. I wiser now, but I had more energy. I could relate to being a kid more. I'm not suggesting it's better. But people seem to automatically assume that being older when having kids as better. I know some much older parents who were not good parents. I know I would not make a good parent…

I did not have more time in my 20s. In my 20s and early 30s, I was busy “getting out there”. Building my life, my interests, my foundation (not just my career). Now I have a happy life to stand on, and can devote more time, attention, and energy to my family. I don’t deny that your way can work out as well. But OPs advice was “get children before you are 30, don’t wait until after”. Whereas my honest advice, based on…

The advice was to start before you are 30, not finish then. If you have multiple kids my advice is the last should be around 35 maybe 40 but space them out

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#335

Post by meheleventyone »

wredcoll wrote: post #241
999900000999 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here is this can lead people to pushing it till 40+. I was talking to a nice girl up until she mentioned still wanting kids in her late 40s. Maybe I’m old school, but telling someone you froze your eggs the same day you meet them is weird. Society itself is broken. You SHOULD be able to graduate high school and make enough to support yourself and a family with a bit of struggle. This rapidly transformed int…

> Society itself is broken. You SHOULD be able to graduate high school and make enough to support yourself and a family with a bit of struggle This has literally only been true for about 30 years out of the sum total of human history, would you like to guess when those 30 years happened to be? Obviously the answer is "1950s america". For the rest of human history, you needed something beyond the education you receive…

Whether something should be the case has little bearing on whether it has been the case for any length of time particularly in something as flexible as the organization of society. It should largely be fine to point at something and say "I would like things to work this way" and try to organize society in that direction.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#336

Post by lesuorac »

kergonath wrote: post #303
anitil wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they called it "advanced maternal age" here. They use the delightful phrase "Geriatric pregnancy" in Australia

It’s just the technical medical term. I don’t think “advanced maternal age” is much better (advanced age at 35?). Besides, advanced age is exactly what geriatric means.

Mother's age of 35 at estimated due date.

So, if the due date is beyond your 35th birthday but you give birth early it's still a advanced maternal age pregnancy.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#337

Post by vessenes »

energywut wrote: post #129
WalterBright wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Seattle, crime is "way down" because many businesses have stopped reporting it, because the police don't respond to less serious crimes anymore. A shopkeeper friend of mine closed his business in Seattle after multiple lootings of his place and the police never showing up. He relocated to a bedroom community. Crime statistics are not necessarily accurate, and politicians have an interest in minimizing tho…

You have any data to support that? I've lived in Seattle for 40 years, and crime here is way less of a concern now than it ever has been. Especially violent crime. My experience also seems to match statistics. So, it would seem that your friend's experience might be the outlier -- I'm not saying they are wrong, I'm saying their experience doesn't match the data and there's at least one anecdote (mine) that runs count…

I'm not sure the data backs up your assertion -- in fact, it looks to me like Seattle's crime rate is roughly steady -- and bad -- over the last 20 years.

Seattle had the highest burglary rate in the nation of any large city as recently as 2023 (1201 per 100k residents!). https://www.safehome.org/resources/crime-statistics-by-state...

from 1999-2018 (most recent I can find a chart for), Violent crime ebbed and flowed but ended essentially where it started: 680/100k residents, almost double the US average. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/cities/us/wa/seat.... I believe this uses FBI numbers.

Seattle Police report 5394 violent crimes in 2024, with 755k residents that's ~700 violent crimes per 100k, or roughly where it was in both 1999 and in 2018. https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2025/04/28/crime-drops-2...

I note that the Axios article says 2025 is on track to be a big drop; I have no idea what crime seasonality is, so I'd take that news story with a grain of salt until the year is out. Either way I just don't think Seattle's crime rates are "way less of a concern" over the last 40 years. Well, people may have become acclimated or stopped caring. But the rates are high, and don't look to have changed that much.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#338

Post by kragen »

dmix wrote: post #246
kragen wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's an offset of about 18 years, if I remember correctly?

I see, so since a large majority of crime is done by young people, peaking between 15-25, they are basically comparing a whole new generation of kids who didn't have developmental brain issues vs their elders. Were the older people who grew up with lead exposure also experiencing higher rates of impulsive crime in the late >1990s relative to the new and prior generations? That would help eliminate the major differenc…

That's an interesting question, and I don't know the answer.

Re: America’s incarceration rate is in decline

#340

Post by mdorazio »

casenmgreen wrote: post #25

Freakonomics argued that crime correlates to whether or not abortion is available. If it is not, crime rates are up, and by a lot. If it is, crime rates are down. When you flip from one to the other, takes about 15/20 years for the effect to show up. Rationale is that forcing parents to have their kids when they're not ready for them significantly increases delinquency in young adults. This is apparently the only pos…

Please be careful about Freakonomics and the other PopSci books like it. Many of the claims it makes have either been disproven, shown to be flawed, or do not reflect consensus among serious researchers. Some examples here:

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/freakonomics-what-...

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